The three-way race for a seat on the Orleans Parish Criminal District Court bench shapes up as a clash of styles and courtroom experience. Voters will decide among Donald Sauviac Jr., a Republican, and Democrats Glen Woods and Franz Zibilich in a special election Oct. 22 to fill the Section L seat that longtime Judge Terry Alarcon is vacating.

All three candidates are criminal defense attorneys and native New Orleanians. And that's where the similarities end.

Sauviac eschews candidate forums and hasn't stirred up much by way of cash or political endorsements, saying he prefers to reach people on the streets, in churches and social settings.

He was a public defender in Orleans Parish from 1997 until he was laid off in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, and he also built a private practice billing himself as "The King of Mardi Gras Criminal Defense." Sauviac specialized in springing the criminally festive: the drunk, lewd backwash of Carnival season and beyond.

You can still reach him at 1-800-NOTGUILTY, but he's toned down his marketing and turned his attention to contract public defense work and a push for elected office. Sauviac, 48, lost bids for the Section A seat in 2007 and in 2008 for magistrate judge.

He says he wants to get back to how things ran at the criminal courthouse before the storm, when the docket was leaner and, Sauviac says, better organized. He said he aims to reach a "zero docket," with no active cases.

"You haven't heard that mentioned there in a dozen years," he said. "It's the Katrina excuses: We can't find the evidence, we don't know where the witnesses are. The court needs to be rewired."

Sauviac favors a system similar to other parishes, where judges know which trials are set to go and prospective jurors can call in to see whether they're needed, rather than linger in the courthouse.

"Triage and logistics," he said. "Why do we have to wait for the morning of trial to figure out which case is going?"

Sauviac, who describes himself as "on the very liberal side of Republican," said he also would tackle the impact of mental illness on the justice system.

Woods, on the other hand, has been critical of District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro for openly challenging the 12 Criminal District Court judges to work harder, in some cases through public shame over their trial volume or attendance record on the bench.

A former prosecutor under Harry Connick, Woods, 56, calls it "unfair to use the bully pulpit when they're taking (so many) of these cases," referring to a sharp rise in felony prosecutions under Cannizzaro.

Woods sees the conflict between the DA and judges as a major obstacle to swift justice and public trust in the system.

Before leaving the DA's office in 2001 after 16 years to join a civil practice -- he shifted to criminal defense a year ago -- Woods had risen to special prosecutor under Connick, working murder, corruption and other major felony cases.

Among his highest profile cases, Woods helped send rookie police officer Antoinette Frank and Rogers LaCaze to death row for an infamous 1995 triple murder at the Kim Anh restaurant in eastern New Orleans.

Instead of a slate of endorsements, Woods, who is making his first run at public office, recently waved a clutch of awards he has won, from Connick and a crime victims advocacy group.

"They say they practiced down there. I used to live down there every day," Woods said of his experience in the criminal courthouse. "I'm not saying I'm better. I'm saying I'm the most qualified."

Woods touted his experience lawyering on several fronts, representing the state, criminal defendants and both sides in civil disputes.

"Between crime and political corruption, New Orleans will never reach its full potential," he said. "The new New Orleans is slowly retreating back to the old New Orleans ... You've got to clean house from top to bottom."

Zibilich, like Woods, is a Democrat, but he comes at the race from a different angle, aligning with Cannizzaro in the DA's bid to speed the pace and bring more felony cases to trial.

He said he aims to run a ten-hut courtroom, with a goal of 60 jury trials in his first year. That would rival or surpass any judge at Tulane and Broad.

"The whole building needs to be a lot more professional," he said. "I'm going to be in a hurry to go to trial every day."

Zibilich left the city attorney's office this summer after 24 years to run for the seat and has secured a hefty roster of political backing, from Mayor Mitch Landrieu to Cannizzaro to state Sen. Edwin Murray.

At 57, he has defended numerous cops and the NOPD in lawsuits over alleged use of excessive force.

This is his third bid for public office. Zibilich lost in a runoff with Lynda Van Davis for a criminal district seat in 2003 and lost in a campaign for district attorney in 2002.

He boasts of a "wide and deep" reservoir of experience in state and federal courts and said he has dreamed of sitting on the criminal bench since he watched his father try cases there in the 1970s. As a law student, he clerked for a judge in the building and has since tried many cases there.

Zibilich, who teaches a course in trial advocacy at Tulane Law School, is legend for his spirited defense of an adult film purveyor in 2001 in Jefferson Parish, where he employed sex toys as visual aids and played the jury a triple feature of graphic porn, in a tolerance test. The jury hung, and the DA dropped the case.

As a judge, Zibilich said he would focus on violent crimes and languishing cases.

"That building was done to try the bad guys. Murder, rape, home invasion robbery," he said. "There's not enough time in the day to try second- or third-offense weed cases."